The 2021-2022 school year was a very special one. This spring we had one high school graduate and one college graduate. We were also able to celebrate our 3rd Annual Evening of Hope in person! It was so good to see so many of you!
I am thankful for how God is working in the lives of our families at Hope Farm. I have loved watching God’s plan unfold in the life of Samuel Harris who graduated from Everman High School this spring and has enrolled in classes at Tarrant County College to begin his Associates Degree this fall. Samuel was raised by his grandmother Barbara Lynn who has poured her life and energy into protecting and guiding her grandson. Hours before Samuel walked the stage, we had a ceremony for him during which he received a Hope Farm jacket for completing our program. As Samuel’s high school chapter ends, his college chapter begins. We will be there every step of the way during his new chapter!
Thurman Hogan graduated from Trinity University with a degree in marketing from the Neidorff School of Business and begins his new chapter. Thurman will go to work for Black Outside, Inc. which is a nonprofit that reconnects black youth to the outdoors and is based in San Antonio. Having been at Hope Farm since he was 5, Thurman understands the incredible gift of positive mentorship to youth in a day and age when our youth needs us desperately. Thurman’s new chapter is one of difference-making in the lives of children who need difference makers!
The idea of difference making was the theme of our 3rd Annual Evening of Hope which featured author and scholar Caylin Louis Moore whose book, A Dream Too Big, is must-read. Rhodes Scholar Caylin Moore graduated from TCU and volunteered at Hope Farm several times during his senior year. His message during the 3rd Evening of Hope, held at the Fort Worth Zoo, was about the difference we can make giving hope to children who are growing up in hard places. Raised by a single mom, Caylin grew up in Compton, California, and experienced homelessness and extreme poverty. His mom had a restraining order on Caylin’s dad who is now serving a life sentence for murder. Caylin and his two siblings grew up having to take “bucket baths” because they never had a working shower, and along with their mom, slept in the same bed until Caylin grew too large and slept on the floor. He did not carry a backpack during middle school because it slowed him down when he had to run home through gang-run neighborhoods. Caylin wrote in his book about the adults here and there who invested in him with their words, time, and encouragement. Those moments gave him hope. Caylin writes,
My personal drive was always fueled by hunger. Not for food. There wasn’t enough food to go around, and there was nothing I could do about that. But there are other worse hungers. Hunger for love, for safety and security. The worst, though, is to starve for hope. That is the worst kind of hunger. That’s the hunger I could do something about, and it’s the hunger that drives me even now. I feast on hope. It carries me forward (p. 33-34, A Dream Too Big).
I love that Hope Farm is a place that provides HOPE to our young men and their single moms. I love that God is helping us be a safe and secure place for our students in the afternoons and summer. As we close out the 2022 school year and begin a new chapter with our families, I am hopeful that we are entering one of the best years ever in our ministry!